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Even if they are (which is apparently disputed), pointing out that someone is using a fallacy does not make them automatically wrong. Next time, you should try
by timdiggerm 10y ago
Even if they are (which is apparently disputed), pointing out that someone is using a fallacy does not make them automatically wrong. Next time, you should try saying something more substantive than "Fallacy!"
- matt-attack 10y ago> using a fallacy does not make them automatically wrong I thought that is precisely what using a fallacy makes you. It's what the word fallacy means. It essentially means a "false statement".
- mikeash 10y agoFallacy means faulty reasoning, not a false statement. It is possible to use faulty reasoning to arrive at a correct statement. For example, "The sun rises each day, because if it didn't then everyone would die." That's the fallacy of an appeal to consequences, yet the conclusion (the sun rises each day) is correct.
- elmigranto 10y agoWell, everyone would die, though :)
- mikeash 10y agoOf course! The only incorrect thing in there is "because."
- psahabu 10y agoThis line of reasoning is itself a fallacy. http://www.fallacyfiles.org/fallfall.html http://www.fallacyfiles.org/fallfall.html
- riboflava 10y agoFurthermore there are other forms of reasoning than pure deduction. If you allow probabilistic inference, which is how humans generally operate intuitively, many deductive fallacies turn into probabilistic theorems.